by Laura Drewry
“Okay, you’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry, but this ain’t NASCAR, so maybe try to keep all four wheels on the road when you take the corners. Now come on, let’s go get a coffee.”
“I told you it upsets my stomach when I drink it this late in the day.”
“Then get something else.” When the stubbornness started to settle over her face, Brett turned so he was sitting at an angle facing her. “Keep looking at me while I talk. Me. Over here. Hello? Maybe smile if you can manage it, pretend you’re happy to be sitting here.”
“Why? What are you doing?”
“Don’t look, but Kurt’s parked over by the dry cleaners—no, I said don’t look!” Why was it every time you said that to a person, the first thing they did was look? “Thanks for listening.”
“I don’t see him.”
“Two over from the light standard, next to the silver Tahoe.”
“There’s a UPS truck in the way,” she said, craning her neck. “Are you sure it’s him?”
Brett didn’t answer, just cocked his brow and tipped his head a little.
“Sorry,” she muttered, holding her hands palms out. “I didn’t mean to insult your superhero cop skills.”
“You want to argue or you want to listen to the plan?”
“I’m not arguing, I’m…Wait. There’s a plan?”
“Yes, Ellie,” he said slowly, enunciating each word clearly. “There is a plan, and if you’d give me two seconds, I might be able to explain it to you.”
“Fine. Explain it, I’m all ears.”
“Go in there with me and maybe he’ll start to believe you.”
“About what?” The question was still fresh on her lips when her eyes bulged. “You mean you and me? Together?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you nuts? You’re a cop—he’ll never believe it!”
Just once it would be nice if she just agreed to something without an argument. “Me being a cop is part of why this might work.”
“No way.”
“How ’bout you let me finish before you flip out?”
“I’m not flipping out.” She started shaking her head, then immediately switched to nodding. “Okay, you’re right, I’m flipping out.”
“You told Kurt you were seeing someone and that you were a different person than the one he knew back in Toronto, right?”
“Yeah, but—”
“So what better way to prove both of those things than for him to see you not only dating, but dating a cop?” Before she could come up with another argument, he pushed on: “It’s a cup of coffee, Ellie. Or tea. Hell, have water for all I care. All we’re trying to do is plant a seed.”
“Yeah, but…” She didn’t look even slightly convinced. Or maybe it was the idea of actually spending time with him that made her frown like that.
Too bad. Sarge had given him a job to do, and he was going to do it even if it meant forcing her hand.
“Come on.” He was about twenty steps away before he realized she was still in the truck. Cursing himself and this whole stupid idea, he went back and pulled open her door. “You understand this can only work if we’re actually seen together, right? Side by side, maybe. Or at least in the same airspace.”
He was kidding, but she wasn’t laughing. She just sat there staring at him.
“Hello? Earth to Ellie…let’s go.”
“Why?” Behind her deep frown, her brown eyes searched his face as she asked it again: “Why do you insist on helping me?”
“I don’t know. Because you’re letting me, because it’s what any decent person does for another, and because I really hate being painted with the same brush as the cops you dealt with before.”
“Wow.” It took a while, but eventually her frown smoothed out and her mouth tipped up in an almost timid smile as she reached across the console and grabbed for her shoes. “You really take this Dudley Do-Right thing seriously, don’t you?”
“Damn right. Now, if you could get on board with this and just pretend to like me for ten minutes—fifteen tops—that’d be a big help.”
This time when he walked away from the truck, she was right beside him, and halfway to the coffee shop, she actually made him jump when she slipped her trembling hand in his.
“Sorry,” she said, pulling it back. “If we’re supposed to be together, I just thought—”
Brett caught her pinkie and tugged her hand back until their fingers were threaded together. Her trembling stopped, but her spine was so stiff she looked like she’d snap in a good wind, and all because of that stupid son of a bitch sitting in that black car.
“Relax,” he murmured as they took their drinks to the booth by the window. “It’s just coffee. At least I think it’s supposed to be coffee.”
It smelled more like sludge, but there wasn’t much he could do about that now.
He pointed her over to the other side of the booth so he’d have a clear view through the front window at the passenger side of the black car, and then he took his time opening up a couple of mini creamers and sugar packs.
“What’s he doing?” she asked.
Brett didn’t let his gaze linger any longer than it took him to blink. “I can’t tell from here, but he hasn’t gotten out of the car yet. Talk about something; it’ll make this seem real. If you can manage it, pretend I said something funny—laugh. At least smile.”
The noise that came out of her wasn’t even close to a laugh; it was more of a choked snort.
“That’s rich, coming from you,” she said. “And why do I have to be the one to smile? It’s not like he can see my face.”
“Right now your back and shoulders look like they’ve got metal rods rammed through them, and if he knows you, he’ll recognize that. Smiling and laughing are natural relaxants, so even if he can’t see you do it, it’ll show in your body language.”
“I’ve got some other body language I’d like to give him, starting with…”
Brett covered her finger with his hand before she could get it up too high.
Her brow lifted as though she expected him to say something, then she just shook her head. “Oh, come on, Ponch, I know you’re not big on the whole smiling thing, but that was worth at least a smirk, no?”
Funny, he thought he was smiling. All that mattered was he had her talking and that seemed to be relaxing her a little, which was good.
“Don’t give him the finger, don’t look at him, don’t do anything that’ll indicate that we’ve seen him.”
She was looking right at Brett when he spoke, but he knew she wasn’t listening.
“What is it with you and smiling, anyway?”
“I’m serious, Ellie.”
“I know, that’s the problem. You’ve got a great smile, so why not flash it more often? You afraid all the bad guys in town’ll start thinking Poncherello’s gone soft on them?”
“No.”
“Then what is it? Come on, we have to talk about something while we sit here, so spill it.” Between each sentence, she grimaced through slow sips of her tea, looking at him over the rim of her mug. “Did years of orthodontics make you self-conscious or something?”
“I never wore braces.”
“You didn’t? Well, that’s impressive. Score one for the good-teeth gene.”
Scrubbing his hand over the top of his head, Brett sat back and sighed. “Can we talk about something else?”
“Sure, just as soon as you answer the question.”
After a good solid minute of him drinking the worst cup of coffee ever brewed, and her big brown eyes staring at him like that, so intent, so focused, he finally gave in. Not because he felt pressured, and not because he couldn’t handle an interrogation, but because there was something in her eyes, something that made him think she wasn’t just being nosy and she wasn’t making idle conversation. She honestly wanted to know.
“Fine.” He wrapped both hands around his mug and stared at the narrow chip that ran the length of the handle. “It’s becaus
e of my sister.”
Ellie didn’t say anything, just folded her arms on the table and leaned a little closer, waiting.
“When she died it was…well, it pretty much wrecked my folks.”
“I’m sure.”
“No, it was bad; it was too much for them to watch the rest of the world keep spinning, like they thought they were betraying her if they let themselves be happy again without her here.” He spun his mug idly, first one way, then the other. “They still functioned, went to work, kept the house running, but that was it. They were just…wrecked. There’s no other way to describe it. I was fourteen; I had no idea what the hell I was supposed to do to help, except this.”
“How would not smiling help your parents? They must’ve wanted you to be happy still.”
Brett shrugged. “Obviously Rosie and I weren’t identical, but everyone always said we had the exact same smile, so it was just better for them if I didn’t do it anymore. One less reminder of what they lost.”
“Oh my…But it’s not just them. You hardly ever smile around anyone.”
“Old habits die hard.” He lifted his hands in a short surrender and looked everywhere except at her; at the coffee-bean-shaped clock hanging above the door, at the fly buzzing around the banana loaf in the display case, at the mother and son tossing bags into the charity bin outside, at the…whoa…at Ellie’s hands, which were now wrapped around his.
Her touch was soft, but it packed a hell of a punch, and made him sit stock-still in case any movement from him might break their contact.
“I’m sorry,” she said. And she looked sorry, too.
“Not your fault.” Damn, his throat was dry. “How were you supposed to know that’s what I was going to tell you?”
“I’m not sorry I asked,” she said softly. “I’m sorry about your sister. And I’m really sorry about your parents; I can’t imagine how hard that must’ve been.”
“They’re better now, but—”
“No.” Her laugh was quiet, gentle as she patted his hands one more time, then sat back. “Not hard for them. For you! I can’t imagine how hard it must’ve been on you.”
“Oh. I, uh…” Water! Was it too much to ask for a glass to magically appear in front of him?
“I’m not minimizing your parents’ loss, because no parent should outlive their child—it’s just that when Rosie died, you lost your sister and your parents.”
He cleared his throat, then did it again, harder, when she looked at him like that, her eyes full of compassion instead of the mocking he was so used to.
“Yeah,” he finally muttered. “Okay, so how ’bout them Yankees?”
“Fine, change the subject,” she said, smiling slowly. “But you really should smile more. Don’t get me wrong—the whole ‘I’m gonna go all Jason Bourne on your ass’ look works, too, but that smile of yours…just sayin’. Not a bad thing, Ponch. Even if you are a cop.”
“Okay, moving on to something else. Anything else. The Pythagorean theorem, the number of times that fly’s landed on the banana bread since we got here…” How he’d give his right arm to have her touch him again.
“You don’t like talking about yourself?”
“Uh, no.” Hudak’s patrol car pulled into the parking lot, drove slowly down the row behind the Civic, then up the other side. “Not really.”
Kurt backed the black car out of its spot and headed to the far end of the lot, where he idled over two empty stalls.
“What’s going on?”
Brett blinked her back into focus. “Sorry?”
“You went ‘cop’ on me there for a second, but I know you’ll just wig out if I dare look out the window, so what is it?”
“What the hell does that mean, I went ‘cop’? I didn’t even move.”
“You didn’t have to.” Laughing, she made two air circles with her finger like she was outlining his eyes. “Normally your eyes are like…like tropical-water blue. When you go cop, it’s like you’ve got some kind of storm brewing in there.”
“Gimme a break,” he scoffed, struggling to stop the burning sensation over his face. “They’re the exact same as about a billion other people’s on the planet.”
“No, they’re—well, look at that, I made you blush. I could agree with you and say, yeah, they’re just like everyone else’s, except that would be a lie, because they’re not.”
“Seriously?” He almost liked it better when she didn’t talk to him so much. “Literally thousands of other things we could be talking about right now.”
Hudak’s car came back into view, heading toward where Kurt was still idling. Before she got close, he pulled out of the parking lot and headed back toward the highway.
“Okay,” Ellie was saying. “Tell me more about your sis—”
“He’s gone—we can move out.”
“Wha—? Okay.”
From the second Sarge had started explaining this plan to him, Brett had known it wasn’t going to be easy, but he’d expected the difficulty to come from Ellie being uncooperative and stubborn. He hadn’t expected it to come from her wanting to talk to him—or, rather, wanting to talk about him.
It was hard to focus on anything else when she looked at him like that, like she was actually interested in what he had to say. It was even harder to focus when she walked ahead of him in those damn shoes.
“Hey, Ponch?”
“Hmm?”
“If we’re going to be going on more pretend dates, next time can we pretend to go to Starbucks or Timmy’s instead?”
“Why, was your tea pretty bad?”
“Bad? I don’t know what you were drinking, but I swear the stuff in my cup was nothing more than dishwater they’d dragged a tea bag through. Am I driving?”
“Yeah,” he sighed. “I guess, but can you try to keep it under ninety?”
“Sure, if you can try to keep the yelling to a dull roar.”
This time he took the shoes from her and left them lying on his lap. The way she drove they’d get tossed around on the floor, and he didn’t want them getting damaged because then she’d never wear them again. And that would be a shame.
They headed north up the highway to the far end of town, looped around by the landfill, then down the back road past the cemetery and the landing strip people around here called an airport. All the while, Brett alternated between reminding her to slow down and explaining a bit more about his discussion with Sarge.
“So you’re going to be undercover?”
“Not exactly. Given our relationship—relax, that was Sarge’s word, not mine—he can’t let me take the lead on this, so I’m just going to stand in as the new guy in your life. Another RCMP member’s going to run the investigation.”
Shockingly, from the second she hit the school zone until the second it ended, she held her speed to thirty on the button.
“So your job for the next little while is to, what, act as my arm candy? How happy do you think the taxpayers are going to be about that?”
“They pay me to do a job, and that’s what I’m doing. When I’m on my normal shift, I’ll be doing the exact same things I always do, but off shift, unless you’ve got a better idea that we can put into play right now, I’ll be the new great love of your life.”
Her silence indicated that she didn’t. They drove past all the hotels, but there was no sign of Kurt or the black Civic, and as it was starting to get dark, he had Ellie turn the truck toward home. Leaving it running, she took a moment to move the seat back while Brett hopped out and came around to the driver’s side.
“You’re gonna need to trust me on this, Ell,” he said, keeping his voice low enough that none of the neighbors could hear him. “We’ll keep you safe.”
“It’s not that.” Holding the open truck door for support, she used her free hand to work her shoes back on. “Okay, maybe it’s a little bit that, but this doesn’t make sense. You can’t give up your personal life for me. I can see you doing it for almost anyone else, but not me.”
Keeping her frightened eyes straight on his, she swallowed slowly and licked her lips.
“He’s behind the tree on the far side of Dickie’s yard.”
“You sure?”
“Mm-hmm.”
Brett’s brain shot into overdrive; the truck was running because he was just going to drop Ellie off and go home, but that was before he knew they had company. If they were really seeing each other, is that what they’d do? It was fairly early on a Friday night—there’s no way in hell that’s what they’d do….
Fear turned to uncertainty as she inhaled slowly and appeared to brace herself. “I’m really sorry about this.”
In what seemed like slow motion, her hand slid over his jaw, pulling him closer until…holy shit…she kissed him. Not just a good-night peck, but a lean-in, openmouthed, soft, slow, body-melding kiss.
This wasn’t in the plan…his hands on her waist…not in the plan…sliding them around her back like that and pulling her up against him…really not in the plan. Him kissing her back?
Holy shit, so far out of the plan it wasn’t even funny.
New plan. Right. Okay.
First thing he needed to do was stop kissing her. Now. Stop it! Holy shit!
When they finally came up for air, her dazed expression quickly morphed into a cloud of confusion and then to a frown as she took a step back. It was his turn to act, and he needed to keep her with him, keep her focused. Cupping her face in his hands, he spoke quietly but firmly.
“Look at me. Ell, look at me. That’s it. Now take my hand.”
“I…no, I…” She made to step back again, but Brett caught her hand and held it tight.
“Take me inside.” Before she could argue, he reached inside the truck, pulled the key out of the ignition, and grabbed his cellphone. “Now.”
It took a couple of tries for her to finally get the front door unlocked, and as soon as she did, he ushered her in ahead of him.
“No,” he barked, harsh but quiet. “Leave the lights off.”